Planning for capital improvement construction in all five district high schools started during the 2023-2024 school year.
“We were informed about construction I would probably say June of 2023 they talked about construction with us locally, though I’m sure it’s probably been in the works longer than that because you [have to] go through SPLOST to get approval from tax dollars to build stuff so it’s been in the works long before then. When they started talking to us about various spaces we couldn’t use on campus would have been last summer, end of last school year, end of the ‘23 school year going into that summer,” Athletic Director and AP of parking and facilities Leon Hammond said.
Construction at McIntosh was delayed last school year, but over the summer, construction on tennis courts, a new baseball field, an auxiliary gym and new concession stands began. Due to this construction, changes have been made to student parking lots. Students have trouble finding open parking spots, especially students who pot out first period because that’s when majority of students arrive on campus.
“It’s really hard for me to find a parking spot,” junior Annaliese Black said.
Assistant Principal Bob Rice addressed issues with McIntosh being the smallest land lot in the county compared to other schools in Fayette County.
“We’re getting all this stuff but [all the construction plans] might look a little bit different in each case. Because every school has different needs, and our campus is actually the smallest out of all high schools and we’re very landlocked,” said Rice. “But in our case too it was also ‘Well McIntosh also needs a new baseball field. In order for us to do this, we’ve got to create a new field. So, in order for us to have this auxiliary gym, in order for us to have the [tennis] courts, it was ‘okay, well, we don’t have space for that so what do we gotta do?”
Due to construction of the new baseball field, the number of golf cart parking spots decreased. On Aug.1, McIntosh had student orientation, that’s when administration realized a problem.
“We had to contact the district and say, we need to get some of those spots back in another location so that we can meet the needs of our golf cart parkers,” Principal Amy Hammock said.
“Right when all of this was happening we had 316 student [car] parking spots, 165 teacher spots, and then right at that time, this was probably right before student orientation. We counted and had 317 golf cart spots at the time and we realized that day we were losing some spots because of construction and access to the baseball field,” Hammock said.
On Aug. 2, FCBOE came to McIntosh to restripe the parking lot to give more parking spots near the lower lot for golf carts.
“It was a very quick turnaround, because we had planned for them to only take a few spots near the baseball field, and they took a lot more than we were expecting,” Hammock said.
At McIntosh, golf cart permits are sold to students at any grade level. But, car parking permits are only sold to juniors and seniors.
“We sell more golf cart parking here than car parking, obviously because you can drive a golf cart earlier and younger. We never really typically have been full on car parking. I think part of the reason is we have so many kids who are either dual enrollment [or] opt in or opt out,” Hammond said.
McIntosh has about 1700 students on campus and with the car and golf cart spots combined, there are only about 633 places to park. So this leaves a problem for the rest of the students who don’t get permits.
“We can’t control if students are parking off campus, you know, if that’s what you do, you’re running into potential problems with those individual businesses or the church, so if Sprouts tows your car or your golf cart, that’s not a McIntosh issue. Yeah, that’s not us. We can only control what’s on our campus, and we certainly can’t encourage you to park elsewhere. So, it’s just one of those things where if you do that, you’re taking a risk, so we can’t help you on that one,” Hammond said.
When asking students who drive golf carts to school if they were impacted by construction, quite a few had some things to say regarding the issue.
“I think adding bigger spaces for bigger golf carts would help,” Black said.
However, there are other ways for students to get to school.
“We do have buses that take you to dual enrollment at the old Booth, but, you know [with] buses, you never have to worry about parking with that,” Rice said.
Some Dual Enrollment students have trouble finding parking spots when then come in after second period classes.
“It’s becoming increasingly difficult to find a parking spot because people who come for first period have been taking them up,” senior Isabella Matthews said.
Administrators at McIntosh recommend this alternative to combat limited parking spaces. Before construction, parking was restricted because there were more students than parking spaces. Construction has exacerbated this issue, and the availability of parking spaces will remain limited for some time.
“Parking is going to be limited for a while. It’s not going to go away anytime soon,” Rice said.
